A note of context: I played ultimate competitively for a long time, and this newsletter began as an effort to examine life through the lens of the sport.
After a tournament ends, it can be hard to believe how much fit into a single weekend. Starting the drive or hanging out at the airport on Friday might as well be a lifetime apart from getting back home on Sunday. The same can be said for any two games, really.
There are so many singular settings, interactions, and emotions, too: a particular point played; a ride back in time when you bump into an old friend; the familiar comfort of being at the restaurant and watching a movie at the hotel with teammates.
All these distinct pieces, strung together by a common thread or held by the same container.
I’ve never had a Year After My Dad Died before, and I never will again. In some ways it felt like an entire lifetime, the same way a season or a tournament or a game can. Everything happened within it.
I’ve shared three snapshots below.
1. How today became an anniversary
“Chapters that were brief but that read so long.” A friend described a set of memories that way and I wish I were that brilliant.
It took a few moments for me to realize what the woman on the phone was saying.
Calling about Mark Neeley. Calling from the emergency room at UW. I was expecting that; Lynda had texted to say he went in. He went in all the time.
I was his next of kin. That’s why she was calling.
They usually didn’t clarify that, but ok.
His heart had stopped. Should they try? Did I know if he had a DNR?
He’s been thinking about it, I know. But I’m not sure if he signed it. He wouldn’t talk to me about it. We should call his doctor. Can we call his doctor? You just dial the main desk and they page her and she calls back pretty quickly.
It’s more urgent than that. We can try– oh.
Actually, they’re telling me we lost him.
Lost him? Lost him like… so I’m clear, he’s gone?
Well. I can’t imagine your job is easy. Thanks for doing it.
I’d have to look at my phone to see how long that call lasted. 3 minutes? 4?
My sister noticed his DNR on the fridge, while we were cleaning and packing. The EMTs must have missed it. He had signed it.
Brief story. Long chapter.
2. Arches
We listened to The Pharcyde as we drove out of Arches, and it was one of the trip’s most perfect musical moments.
“We go round and round, life is just a moment in time…”
100 million year-old rock formations, carved out when the whole continent was under the ocean like a mud puddle next to the sidewalk. All this force, coming together to make these giant entryways. It’s the same force that made me, and that had made my dad.
1957-2021. 100 million years will put 64 into perspective. All that dust and sand. All that space. All that time. So shockingly, unfathomably big. The pace is mind-boggling.
Zoom out, and these rocks and human lifetimes and entire universes are coming and going in the blink of an eye.
That kind of scale can be terrifying. I have this memory of being 16, laying in bed awake in the middle of the night, sick to my stomach over the idea of time never ending.
There in the park, though, it felt like a deep breath. Dad had walked through those doors and returned to their timeline.
All these bits and pieces had consolidated to make a human who was here for a while, and now it was all scattering– his ashes, but also his belongings and his relationships and the songs he sang along to, and the life inside all of it. Going its separate ways, ready to spend a few billion years becoming something else.
What kinds of ripples do we start in this lifetime? Whose waves do we spend our lives riding?
We’re all long-lost neighbors, headed back to the same place.
3. Everything has still changed
In the days after he died, I knew that it was the right time. It wasn’t easy or straightforward, and it wasn’t like I was walking around in total clarity. But I was guided by the trees, and how the dead ones host more life as they decay on the forest floor than when they’re standing. It had been a long, hard struggle; the space that remained where all that used to be was for something.
I’m feeling that way again. It was a dark few weeks. I kept thinking about how this time last year, we were in the homestretch. Yesterday was joyful, though. Celebratory. Or at least peaceful.
I hadn’t known a February 8th without him. The 9th is a different story. He’s not less gone, but it’s comforting to have been here before, at this point in the Earth’s orbit, with this set of circumstances in place.
A new season is coming, and everything will change, including how this great loss is shaped.
The day after the anniversary, he and I took a walk to get a cup of coffee. I was living my life with him there with me for a moment. When I got home, we parted ways and I went upstairs to work.
Whatever is next will be as beautiful and as temporary as everything before it. I welcome its time in the sun.
Want to do some writing and make some friends?
Registration is open for two writing groups I’m hosting in March.
One meets on Wednesday nights, from 6-8 EST
The other meets on Fridays, from 1-3 EST
You can sign up here.
You can also read what past participants have to say about the groups here.
I hope it’s getting a little warmer and sunnier where you are.
Be well,
Jonathan
This brought me to tears all over again, even after reading it months ago.